


Soothes the Soul

by Iamprongsie



Series: Star Wars Modern AU [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Cody's an anxious insomniac classics nerd just like me, Cody's having an anxiety attack at the start of the fic just a headsup, Fluff, GOD the yearning is strong tonight, M/M, Midnight Insomnia Coffee Runs Mysteriously Turn Into Cuddling Until One Of You Passes Out, Modern AU, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Rex is just an insomniac, The Iliad, Title is from Hozier's Moment's Silence, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, liiiitle bit of h/c, other songs for this fic include Annie's Song (John Denver) and Sweet Thing (Van Morrison)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23442055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamprongsie/pseuds/Iamprongsie
Summary: Ten steps up the stairs, take the left, twenty steps up, another left, and here’s a nice open stretch of hallway to pace in front of.He doesn’t notice someone moving around until he’s almost in front of them. It’s Rex, with a coffee mug in one hand and his notebook in the other, probably heading for the kitchen.“Rex, it’s three am. What are you doing up?”
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Star Wars Modern AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1233821
Comments: 4
Kudos: 80





	Soothes the Soul

In the almost three years Cody’s been living in the dorms, the hallways at various hours of the night and early morning have become second nature to navigate. There’s a left just outside the door, then a right to avoid Ventress’ room (she sets her scorpions up by the door just to scare the shit out of unsuspecting passersby - Vos keeps trying to make friends with them), then another right up the stairs to get him to the common room, which is usually empty at 2am. Another left takes him past another block of rooms, complete with creaky floorboards. 

He stops near the staircase before walking up it, feeling panicky and nervous again for no _fucking_ reason. He hates this feeling, hates waking up unable to breathe because his stupid goddamn brain won’t shut up. It’s even worse before he hands up an assignment, he’s always convinced it’s going to be a shitpile but then he gets a decent grade on it and then he feels guilty, because he made such a big fuss over nothing. 

Ten steps up the stairs, take the left, twenty steps up, another left, and here’s a nice open stretch of hallway to pace in front of. 

He doesn’t notice someone moving around until he’s almost in front of them. It’s Rex, with a coffee mug in one hand and his notebook in the other, probably heading for the kitchen. 

“Rex, it’s three am. What are you doing up?”

His boyfriend jumps and turns around, looking pale and over-caffeinated. “Couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d get that reading done for primary ed,” he mutters. “Ran out of coffee and figured I wouldn’t wake anyone up in the kitchen. Why’re you up?”

“That’s only due next friday, you don’t have to do it now,” he deflects, praying Rex won’t ask why he’s up again. 

“Yeah, well, there’s nothing else really to do. Seriously, Codes, why are you up?”

Fuck, he doesn’t know how to phrase this. Not many people have anxiety, and just about everyone Cody’s told about this have told him to suck it up and get over it. Then again, despite his boyfriend’s grumpy exterior, Rex is a genuinely kind and caring person. He’d get it. 

Fuck it, here goes nothing. 

“I had a panic attack, and didn’t want to wake Obi-Wan. I thought I’d go for a walk and clear my head, but it’s not working.”

“A panic attack? Are you alright? Is there anything I can help with?” Rex looks concerned, and Cody almost wants to cry. He knew it’d be alright, but his stupid brain keeps trying to convince him it won’t be. 

“I’ll be alright, I think. It’s never been as bad as this,” he mutters, looking anywhere but Rex’s face. 

“Do you want a hug?” Rex asks, arms held out awkwardly with the coffee mug dangling from one hand. Cody has no clue where the notebook’s gone. 

“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be nice,” he replies, and Rex hugs him tight. He’s never realized this, mainly because he shuts himself off when he thinks he’s going to panic and deals with the fallout himself, but just being near someone when he’s like this goes a long way towards calming him down. He feels like crying again, for some reason, but the last of the adrenaline seems to be leaving his system and he’s not frantically scanning the hallway for threats anymore. 

Rex lets go of him and picks up his notebook, but Cody leans over and kisses him quickly before he can. Rex’s hands move up to cup his face when Cody pulls away, and the handle of Rex’s mug presses into his cheek. 

“You feeling better now?” 

Cody nods. “Yeah. Thanks,” he says, “that helped. Are you going back to bed now?”

Rex looks shifty. “I never went to bed,” he replies. 

“Rex…”

“I couldn’t sleep!” his boyfriend protests, and Cody looks around to make sure they haven’t woken anyone up. 

“Is that why you were doing that homework?”

Rex sighs. “Yeah. I figured I may as well get on top of stuff before exams.”

Cody peers at him in the low light, taking in the dark circles under Rex’s eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Uhh,” he says, and counts back on his fingers. “Three- no, four days ago.”

“ _Rex_ ,” Cody says. Rex looks vaguely guilty. “Right,” Cody continues, grabbing Rex’s hand and turning around. 

“Where are we going?” Rex asks. “This isn’t the way to the kitchen.”

“It’s obvious that neither of us are going to be sleeping tonight, and coffee at three in the morning is a bad idea,” Cody says. Rex snorts softly. Cody fixes him with a disappointed look, the same one he used to give his little brothers when they annoyed him. “And so I’m going to steal some of Obi-Wan’s bullshit sleepy time tea or whatever it is, and we’re going to go sit in the common room.”

“Alright,” Rex says, stifling a yawn as they walk down the hall, hand in hand. “M’not sure I’ll be able to sleep though,”

“You might surprise yourself,” Cody says, amused at his boyfriend’s stubbornness. They get to the room that Cody shares with Obi-Wan, and Rex reluctantly lets go of his hand while he quietly opens the door. His roommate is still asleep, which was the entire point of sneaking out, so Cody quickly rifles through the tea stash on top of their bookshelf, grabs what he’s looking for, and picks up his copy of the Iliad as well. If he doesn’t end up going back to sleep, the book is one of his favourites and it usually calms him down a bit more. 

Hang on, they’re going to need mugs as well. The communal ones in the kitchen are fucking gross - Padme said she’d seen people put them back without washing them the other day. He grabs his favourite, a bright orange one with a rising sun design. A couple sugar packets and a clean spoon go into the mug - Rex likes to pretend he never puts sugar in his drinks but it’s obvious he does. He sneaks out, miraculously not waking Obi-Wan, even when the door creaks. 

“Of course you got the book,” Rex mutters, but there’s no heat behind it. Cody smirks at him. 

“Until there’s a gay retelling of this, I’m gonna keep reading the subtext,” he says. They make their way to the kitchen, where Rex sits on the counter and tries to pretend like he’s not yawning while the kettle boils. Cody dumps the sugar into the discarded coffee mug Rex had and dunks the teabag in, waving away Rex’s protests. 

“I’d be a pretty bad boyfriend if I didn’t know how you took your drinks,” he says, mildly amused. 

Rex smiles. “Thanks,” he says, and takes a sip. “Christ, it tastes like grass, how does Obi-Wan drink this?”

“No idea,” Cody says, taking a sip. “Sheer willpower?”

Rex snorts. “Probably.” He pulls himself off the counter and takes Cody’s hand, and leads him over to the couch in the common room part of the kitchen. “Wanna cuddle?”

“Never thought you’d ask,” Cody says wryly, and sits down on the couch with Rex’s head in his lap, his boyfriend’s legs hanging over the arm of the beaten up sofa. “This alright?”

Rex nods, eyes slipping closed. Success. “You know, you can come to me when you’re anxious,” he says hesitantly. “I’d be a pretty bad boyfriend if you felt you couldn’t talk to me.”

“I think I love you,” Cody whispers, then flushes red. He’s thought it, so many times, he just never thought he’d say it. And especially not like this, in the middle of the fucking night when they both haven’t slept and it’s not the perfect situation like he’d planned -

“I love you too,” Rex says easily, and Cody’s brain short circuits. 

“You love me?”

“Of course,” Rex says, and Cody leans down to kiss him. “Now, you wanna read to me?”

Cody smiles and picks up his copy of the Iliad. “Of course," he says, "From the start, or wherever?”

“From the start, that’s my favourite,” Rex says. Cody nods. 

“ _Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Acheans…_ ” he starts, watching Rex close his eyes and snuggle closer to him. “ _Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so where the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles first fell out with one another…_

" _It was the son of Zeus and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses, his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Acheans to free his daughter..._ "

Cody keeps reading until he’s sure Rex is asleep, just as the first pale fingers of dawn start making their way across the window. He eventually falls asleep, feeling at peace for the first time since the term started, his book forgotten on the couch next to him. 

He’ll be alright, he’s got Rex by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhh I wrote this bc I love projecting onto my favourite characters, and Cody as a classics nerd just fit for me for some weird reason lmaooo  
> and oh my _god_ the yearning is strong in this I just want a gf ;-; (I had a date but the pandemic ruined that)
> 
> oh! please feel free to leave a comment/kudos if you liked it! I've got more stuff planned, and now I don't have to commute an hour for uni anymore and I've got a shitload more free time, I should be able to write some more! watch this space!
> 
> and come join me on my [tumblr!](http://www.pidgeonkatie.tumblr.com) There's lots of clone wars and general shenanigans on there' at the moment, the clone wars renaissance is real and I cannot wait to be emotionally ruined by the Siege of Mandalore


End file.
